The dark-colored pants I wore today might have helped determine my future.

I forgot I had decided yesterday to wear khakis today. I wore my navy blue cords, and spilled coffee down my pant leg walking to class this morning. But I was safe - I was wearing dark-colored pants, and no one could see the stain.

If I wore khakis, I would have walked home and changed my pants because the coffee stain would have been obvious and embarrassing. I would have missed the test in my class, failing it. I would have given up and failed the class. My GPA would have dropped, lowering my chances of going to a reputable law school. I wouldn't have been able to get a job and I would be in debt. I would have died a destitute woman.

Thank God I wore those navy blue pants.

Maybe the chain of events I just described wouldn't have happened if I had worn my khakis, but you never know. While some decisions, like which clothes to put on, are trivial, many decisions are much more than arbitrary. Some weigh more heavily on life's scales.

I don't understand why some people make the decisions they do. Heck, I don't understand why I make the decisions I do.

But someone definitely had something in mind last week when they decided to publish a "pill talk" pamphlet and distribute it via The Post.

And one of my housemates definitely had something in mind this weekend when she decided to leave a handout describing the various forms of birth control on our kitchen table.

Secluded from wandering eyes, I read the pill pamphlet cover to cover this weekend at Strouds. I read every single sentence on the birth control handout on my kitchen table. I thank those people who try to educate me about, according to the pamphlet, making one of the most important decisions in my life. But shouldn't I have made that decision before I made the other most important decision of my life: Whether to have sex in the first place?

I always try to support open, informed discussion of birth control, sex and other private subjects.

But you know what I'd really love - if people would openly discuss WHY so many people have chosen to have sex. As one of my friends said last week, it's incredibly odd and rare to stumble upon a couple who are NOT having sex in college. Most people take it for granted that my boyfriend and I, who have been dating for a little over a month, are having sex just because we're dating and in college.

I can't really say what's going on in their minds, but people typically assume that college couples have sex. Advertising agencies, noting that college campuses are meccas of sexual "freedom," pass out birth control pamphlets because there's a demand for birth control knowledge on our campus. That demand exists because there's an excessive amount of sex on our campus and people are forced to take precautions.

Why don't we have speakers, literature and advertisements about how to make an informed decision of whether to have sex at all?

My parents and I never had the "birds and bees" talk. The only "discussion" I ever had about sex when I was young was nuns telling me sex was a sin, and I'd go to hell if I thought about it. In high school, I took the one required class about which birth control methods to use. In biology, I learned that the human physiology makes it physically possible to have sex. But no one ever discussed reasons for or against having sex. Everyone told me what to do when I decided to have sex, but no one seemed to want to discuss why I should or shouldn't have sex.

Instead of handing out another birth control pamphlet, we should confront the real issue of why almost every single girl I know befriends Hudson for the sole purpose of renewing her birth control prescription.

Emerick plans on inventing a new type of coffee that dissolves as it lands on her clothes and will write a pamphlet about it. Until then, you can send her e-mail at be278896.